Cristina Odone is a journalist, novelist and broadcaster specialising in the relationship between society, families and faith. She is the director of communications for the Legatum institute and is a former editor of the Catholic Herald and deputy editor of the New Statesman. She is married and lives in west London with her husband, two stepsons and a daughter. Her new ebook No God Zone is now available on Kindle.

It’s not the wine that’s the problem, it’s the whining

Mothers-to-be who harm their unborn child by drinking alcohol could be committing a criminal act, lawyers argue (Photo: ALAMY)

From Monday's Daily Telegraph

Hands up those who drank while pregnant. I certainly did – at first unwittingly, as I had no idea I was expecting, since I was 42 and convinced I was past childbearing age; later, when I knew, wonder of wonders, that I was pregnant, I still had the odd glass of wine.

In my defence, I should point out that my doctor saw nothing wrong in this: follow your instinct, she said. So I did. But today, I suspect, I would think twice about my bibulous habit. A mother who drank while pregnant, and whose daughter suffered brain damage in the womb as a result, is facing criminal charges. Hers is a test case, and if she is found guilty, pregnancy will become an alcohol-free zone.

It is already a war zone: armies of self-righteous, opinionated busybodies do battle against women at their most vulnerable. Our contemporary obsession with pregnancy has produced an interminable list of dos and don’ts that looms over a woman’s nine-month gestation, as unwelcome as a know-it-all mother-in-law.

In an everyday situation, it’s easy to ignore unwanted advice; but pregnancy is not an everyday situation, at least not for most women in the West. It is an extraordinary stage, which risks overwhelming even the most solid, pragmatic woman. The physical changes brought on by gestation would reduce any man to hysterical hypochondria. Imagine him as his body swells, strange new freckles appear, and nausea overcomes him: he’d be rushing to A&E on a daily basis, and dialling NHS direct on the hour.

But that difficult physical transformation is only one dimension of pregnancy. The changing hormones also bring a heightened emotional state. Today’s expectant mother feels her every gesture and habit coming under scrutiny from censorious strangers, often in positions of authority. Whether it’s alcohol, cigarettes or beta-blockers: experts have a take on everything, and hover like malign storks, ready to snatch the baby – or at the very least the mother’s peace of mind.

In all this noise, mothers often can’t hear their own voice. Rachel Kelly, whose memoir of depression, Black Rainbow, will be published this spring, describes how the sheer volume of advice surrounding childbirth triggered her despair. Some of it was contradictory, some of it confusing, all of it struck her as people having a dig: she, the perfectionist, was somehow failing.

No wonder many pregnant women ask, exasperated: whose baby is it anyway? Interestingly, those same busybodies whose eyes are fastened on the bump with such intent, suddenly loose interest in the post-partum phase. Yet for many women, giving birth marks the beginning of their difficulties.

The “Baby blues” is a misleading term with its echoes of a safe, cozy, pastel-coloured nursery. The truth is very different. Post-partum depression affects one in 1,000 women, blighting their lives and that of their children. It is often part of the backstory behind horrific headlines, such as the murder of Baby P or the suicide last year of the brilliant banker Diana Mager.

Like all forms of depression, it takes root in a context of high anxiety – and for many women, nothing is more terrifying than the prospect of a new baby, which she must somehow raise while doing everything else.

Research shows that 29 per cent of women in the UK will seek help for mental illness – as opposed to 17 per cent of men. Even accounting for men’s traditional reticence, women are clearly more affected by depression. They are the only ones to bear children. How tragic that there may be a connection – and how ironic that by then, the busybodies have lost interest.